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For obvious reasons I have tried not to mention guests by name, but I cannot help naming Sven Trautner. The first time they visited Djuma must have been about 1995, because I took the enquiry when the “office” was still behind the bar at Bush Lodge. I must have said something right, because Sven and his wife Else Beth, from Denmark, arrived after attending to some business in Johannesburg. It turned out that Sven was the head of the trauma unit at a hospital in Copenhagen.

By the beginning of 1995 business was brisk, and Jurie and I were starting to feel the strain of running the lodge on a round-the-clock basis. Jurie was driving, and walking, guests, organizing the camp maintenance, administration, entertainment, and anything else that needed doing, while I, among other things, was cooking, helping with the housekeeping, coordinating the guests’ activities, and battling with the garden.